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I did not state that there was an "unexpected cancellation" surely you are being misleading! On the day that a $billion is paid out in dividend, what effect do you think it has on something called Cash Flow? The companies that I have worked for and owned have always considered Cash Flow to be of critical importance. But I completely understand that you think it is irrelevant on the day dividends are paid!!!

Shareholders can legally pursue the cancellation of a Final Dividend payment by the company after it has been sanctioned. They cannot pursue the cancellation of an Interim Dividend payment by the company. This is why Shell does not pay a defined Final Dividend.

When peak Panicdemic hit last year, do you really think that the Board of Shell did not consider Interim Dividend cancellation or suspension at various points whether declared or not? They would have been failing in their duties if they had not. The strategy they alighted on was 2/3rds cancellation of anticipated Interim Dividends for the immediate future! I am not aware of any legal challenges to this, but they would have no foundation, even if they had announced the Interim Dividend.

Reading this blog I had been labouring under the misapprehension that this had a direct impact on the Shell share price. Cue reaching for the Mumbo Jumbo & Black Magic view of the chartists! The interminable cacophony of negative moaning on this blog does not seem to be purely centred on the Ex-D point but also on the payment points (and almost every other day of the year, ), where investors receive only a third of what they were doing.

Personally, the triggers for buying RDSB, were the hammering the share price took when they reduced the dividend, the cataclysmic loss of business, together with going below £9.00 a share last October. It presented a great Capital Gains opportunity that for me was totally predictable & that is how things are panning out, whether I collar a dividend or two is of interest, but not very high on my radar. The 11th August could well be my ex-shareholder point, but this blog will be history for me well before that. Neither of us are going to take on board anything we each say, so that it is a discussion with no point whatsoever.

Apologies should read: "Shell could technically cancel......" Second Para, Second sentence

Although you consider the dividend payment date to be completely irrelevant. let's try another angle on this - It might be worth noting that all RDSB dividend payments are Interim Payments. They are paid without the necessity for shareholder approval, which is a legal requisite with the Final Dividend.

The Interim Dividend can be cancelled by the company at any time before the point of payment. The RDSB Interim Payment could technically cancel the payment for Monday the 21st June, technically today or tomorrow, if company circumstances determine this need. RDSB has legal control of this capital until the point of payment. On Monday there will hopefully be a cash outflow from the balance sheet paying the Interim Dividend to us all. At this exact point Shell will no longer have control of these funds! Even you will presumably not argue that this capital is not measured in $billions.

As you state categorically, the dividend payment date is irrelevant, so how could Shell's capitalisation or share price possibly be impacted by the loss of control of $billions exiting its balance sheet at a particular point!!

You were exactly right when you said that you didn't understand the mystery about Ex-D. Where did you get your reference from the Fiction shelf at the local library, or was it the Children's section?

You still pontificate on about it being completely irrelevant what date $Billions exit the balance sheet. You need to show more restraint someone might think you have a clue what you are talking about! Do you think it might have been of interest to BP when the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe started to unfold? I'll give you a clue, because you will need it, the answer is not to be found in your reference document.

It may be worth giving a few pointers on dividends not yet paid and their treatment:

A dividend not yet paid is classed as an Accrued Dividend or Dividend Payable on the Balance Sheet. A company will book its accrued dividends as a balance sheet liability from the declaration date until the dividend is actually paid to shareholders.

Any decrease in liabilities on the balance sheet is a use of funding and so represents a CASH OUTFLOW! Hopefully Shell considers the dividend payment date is relevant, otherwise we are all in trouble because it is measured in $Billions!

"The payment date is irrelevant!" Are you trying to be taken seriously?

Great that the shares are narrowly held. It won't take holders of 67% of the shares to decide the company's fate though, just holders of 50.1% + the Government with their "casting" vote.

If Dark almost immediately became a constituent of the prestigious FTSE 250 Index, only 7-weeks after its IPO debut as a listed company on the 30th April 2021, it would probably call in to question the selection criteria. Most likely they have just decided to be prudent.

The London Stock Exchange will probably announce why and when before the Monday opening. A lot of investors have quite rightly been buying in anticipation of entry to the FTSE 250 in October.

BP - an investor does not qualify for the dividend on the actual date the shares go Ex-D and obviously after that.

Jim800

I know what you mean & it is very logical to think that a share should fall on the Ex-Dividend date, and they almost always do, by the amount of the dividend & usually +. It is a bit of a double whammy!

An investor buys the shares immediately beforehand & does so "Cum" dividend, that is the investor will receive the declared dividend. Or, buys Ex-Dividend on the day or following days, so they do not get the dividend. Once the shares have gone Ex-D, it is effectively the date of the commitment (in tandem with the announcement) that the company will pay the dividend to investors who qualified.

At this point the funds do not technically leave the company, but have to be accounted for generally from retained earnings, or if these are insufficient, occasionally from asset sales (which is generally a temporary measure). However, an investor buying the shares Ex-D is losing the dividend, so that market-makers usually mark the shares down in price as they are worth less to the investor. Depending on the fall & your interest in collecting dividends this can be a great time to buy the shares.

When the dividend payment finally goes out from the company, say for illustration purposes, in total it is a $1billion dividend payment then on that day the company capitalisation is worth $1billion less, as the company simply no longer has that money. So that generally the share price falls by this amount and often more, again depending on an investor affection for dividends this can be a great time to buy shares.

All company share capitalisations should fall by the amount they are about to pay out as a dividend, simply because those funds are then completely lost to the business. Quite often they fall by even more around this time.

You are right something is definitely dragging the Shell share price & it is almost certainly not underperformance of the core business, bearing in mind the current phase of the world exiting from panicdemic! It is also highly unlikely that it is because there are ephemeral expectations that we will wake up in a few days tIme with Shell a 100% green company and fossil fuels left in the ground!

It's disconcerting, but the IPO was only 5-minutes ago, so maybe they have handicapped Dark provisionally until the next judgement from on high!

Entry to the FTSE 250 & results should continue to drive the share price upwards.

Until it is resolved though the Sword of Damocles hanging over the Dark share price will continue to be the involvement of Mike Lynch's Invoke Capital in the Dark IPO. Mike Lynch has been warned on UK prosecution if the US extradition request for him is blocked in relation to his sale of Autonomy. Also the Government has announced that any sale of defence sensitive companies like Dark will be heavily scrutinised, which could act to suppress the share trajectory.

Apologies, this link gets around the FT subscriber stuff:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=FT+oil+100+dollars+a+barrel+2021&ei=Sx_KYMzXOoadgAbA7qvgBQ&oq=FT+oil+100+dollars+a+barrel+2021&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAxKBAhBGABQp5kDWNiqA2Dr5QNoAHACeACAAdMBiAG-A5IBBTMuMC4xmAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpesABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwiMqbOgwpzxAhWGDsAKHUD3ClwQ4dUDCA4

"Oil likely to hit $100 a barrel, say top commodity traders"

https://www.ft.com/content/b27ac2bb-69c9-4e06-94e5-f7373b4de5ba

Worrying views to counter the negativity of the doomsters and naysayers!

Yes - June year end, but the results were out on the 19th July 2018 & I think the 18th July 2019. So the date of release seems very sharp. They have not announced a date for 2021 yet, but I would guess this will come in tandem with the announcement that they are in the FTSE 250, before the start of trading on Monday the 21st June. There should be some decent share price performance ahead as Funds and Institutions buy to balance out their commitments to FTSE 250 stock holdings.

This probably explains Exxon:
https://ieefa.org/activist-investors-hand-historic-defeat-to-exxonmobil-in-proxy-battle/

Chevron looks to have been hit by the same sort of sentiments over recent weeks:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chevron-shareholders-approve-proposal-cut-customer-emissions-2021-05-26/

It is a neat trick if the shale assets are sold at a premium to their written down value as the market improves. Shell wrote down assets by $22 billion in 2020. As long as they sell for above the written down value in the books, it will be seen as a PR & accounting bonus for Shell.